Moreover, his absolute desertion
by his friends, and the invectives and the lampoons with which the
newspapers abounded, and of which he was the subject, rendered any
concealment out of the question, and poor George passed his life in
running about contradicting falsehoods, stating truth, fighting his
cousin's battles, and then reporting to him, in the course of the day,
the state of the campaign.
Cadurcis, being a man of infinite sensibility, suffered tortures. He
had been so habituated to panegyric, that the slightest criticism
ruffled him, and now his works had suddenly become the subject of
universal and outrageous attack; having lived only in a cloud of
incense, he suddenly found himself in a pillory of moral indignation;
his writings, his habits, his temper, his person, were all alike
ridiculed and vilified. In a word, Cadurcis, the petted, idolised,
spoiled Cadurcis, was enduring that charming vicissitude in a
prosperous existence, styled a reaction; and a conqueror, who deemed
himself invincible, suddenly vanquished, could scarcely be more
thunderstruck, or feel more impotently desperate.
The tortures of his mind, however, which this sudden change in his
position and in the opinions of society, were of themselves competent
to occasion to one of so impetuous and irritable a temperament, and
who ever magnified both misery and delight with all the creative
power of a brooding imagination, were excited in his case even to the
liveliest agony, when he reminded himself of the situation in which he
was now placed with Venetia.
Pages:
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463